The Night's Dawn Trilogy (22 page)

At least the block had been left in his pod; several other items had gone missing between the spaceport and the warehouse.
Damn, but why did Ruth have to be right about that? And the sheriffs hadn't shown any interest when he reported the missing
drugs. Again, just like she said.

He sighed and rested his hand on her shoulder as she sat on the edge of the cot, stroking Jay's hair.

“She's a lot tougher than me,” he said. “She'll be all right. At that age, horror fades very quickly. And we'll be goingupriver
straight away. Getting out of the area where it happened is going to help a lot.”

“Thank you, Horst.”

“Do you have any geneering in your heritage?”

“Yes, some. We're not Saldanas, but one of my ancestors was comfortably off, God bless him, we had a few basic enhancements
about six or seven generations ago. Why?”

“I was thinking of infection. There is a kind of fungal spore here which can live in human blood. But if your family had even
a modest improvement to your immune system there won't be any problem.”

He stood and straightened his back, wincing at the twinges along his spine. It was quiet in the dormitory; the lights were
off in the centre where the rest of Group Seven's children had been settled down for the night. Bee-sized insects with large
grey wings were swarming round the long light panels that had been left on. He and Ruth had been left alone by the other colonists
after the sheriff departed to examine the body in the river. He could see some kind of meeting underway in the canteen, most
of the adults were there. The Ivets formed a close-knit huddle in a corner at the other end, all of them looking sullen. And
frightened, Horst could tell. Waster kids who had probably never even seen an open sky before, never mind primeval jungle.
They had stayed in the dormitory all day. Horst knew he should make an effort to get to know them, help build a bridge between
them and the genuine colonists, unite the community. After all, they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
Somehow he couldn't find the energy.

Tomorrow, he promised himself. We'll all be on the ship for a fortnight, that'll give me ample opportunity.

“I ought to be at the meeting,” he said. From where he was he could see two people standing up for a shouting match.

“Let 'em talk,” Ruth grunted. “It keeps them out of mischief. They won't get anything sorted until after the settlement supervisor
shows up.”

“He should have been here this morning. We need advice on how to establish our homes. We don't even know the location we've
been assigned.”

“We'll find out soon enough; and the supervisor will have the whole river trip to lecture us. I expect he's out prowling the
town tonight. I can't blame him, stuck with us for the next eighteen months. Poor sod.”

“Must you always think the worst of people?”

“It's what I'd do. But that isn't what worries me right now.”

Horst sneaked another look at the meeting. They were taking a vote, hands raised in the air. He sat down on the cot facing
Ruth. “What does worry you?”

“The murder.”

“We don't know it was a murder.”

“Get real. The body was stripped. What else could it be?”

“He could have been drunk.” Because God knows a drink is what I need just looking at that river.

“Drunk and taking a swim? In the Juliffe? Come on, Horst!”

“The autopsy should tell us if…” He trailed off under Ruth's gaze. “No, I don't suppose there will be one, will there?”

“No. He must have been dumped in the river. The sheriff told me that two colonists from Group Three were reported missing
by their wives this morning. Pete Cox and Alun Reuther. I'll give you ten to one that body is one of them.”

“Probably,” Horst admitted. “I suppose it's shocking that urban crime is rife here. Somehow you don't imagine such a thing
on a stage one colony world. Then again, Lalonde isn't quite what I imagined. But we'll be leaving it all behind shortly.
Our own community will be too small for such things, we will all know each other.”

Ruth rubbed at her eyes, her expression haunted. “Horst, you're not thinking. Why was the body stripped?”

“I don't know. For the clothes, I suppose, and the boots.”

“Right. Now what sort of mugger is going to kill for a pair of boots? Actually kill two people in cold blood. God, the people
here are poor, I'm not denying it, but they're not that desperate.”

“Who then?”

She looked pointedly over his shoulder. Horst turned round. “The Ivets? That's rather prejudiced, isn't it?” he asked reproachfully.

“You've seen the way they're treated in the town, and we don't treat them any better. They can't move outside the port district
without getting beaten up. Not with their jump suits on, and they don't have anything else to wear. So who is more likely
to want ordinary clothes? Who isn't going to care what they have to do to get them? And whoever did murder that man did it
inside the port, uncomfortably close to this dormitory.”

“You don't think it was one of ours?” he exclaimed.

“Let's say, I'm praying it wasn't. But with the way our luck is turning out, I wouldn't count on it.”

Diranol, Lalonde's smallest, outermost moon, was the only one of the planet's three natural satellites left in the night sky,
a nine-hundred-kilometre globe of rock with a red ochre regolith, half a million kilometres distant. It hovered above the
eastern horizon, painting Durringham in a timid rose-pink fluorescence when the power bike skidded to a halt just outside
the skirt of light leaking from the big transients' dormitory. Marie Skibbow loosened her grip on Furgus. The ride through
the darkened city had been sensational, drawing out every second, filling it with glee and excitement. The walls slashing
past, sensed rather than seen, the headlight beam revealing ruts and mud patches on the road almost as soon as they hit them,
wind whipping her hair about, eyes stung by the slipstream. Taunting danger with every turn of the wheel, and beating it,
living
.

“Here we go, your stop,” Furgus said.

“Right.” She swung her leg over the saddle, and stood beside him. Now the weariness swept through her, a frozen wave of depression
that hung poised high above, waiting to crash down at the prospect of the future and what it held.

“You're the best, Marie.” He kissed her, one hand fondling her right breast through the singlet's fabric. Then he was gone,
red tail light sinking into the blackness.

Her shoulders drooped as she made her way into the dormitory. Most of the cots were full, people were snoring, coughing, tossing
about. She wanted to turn and run, back to Furgus and Hamish, back to the dark fulfilment of the last few hours. Her brain
was still fizzing from the experiences, the naked savagery of the sayce-baiting, and the jubilant crowd in Donovan's, blood
heat inflaming her senses. Then the delicious indecency of the twins' quiet cabin on the other side of town, with their straining
bodies pounding against her first singly then both at once. That crazy bike ride in the vermilion moonlight. Marie wanted
every night to be the same, without end.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Her father was standing in front of her, mouth all squeezed up that way it did when he was really angry. And for once she
didn't care.

“Out,” she said.

“Out where?”

“Enjoying myself. Exactly what you think I shouldn't do.”

He slapped her on the cheek, the sound echoing from the high roof. “Don't you be so bloody impudent, girl. I asked you a question.
What have you been doing?”

Marie glared at him, feeling the heat grow in her stinging cheek, refusing to rub it. “What's next,
Daddy
? Will you take your belt to me? Or are you just going to use your fists?”

Gerald Skibbow's jaw dropped. People on the nearby cots were turning over, peering at them blearily.

“Do you know how late it is? What have you been up to?” he hissed.

“Are you quite sure you want a truthful answer to that, Daddy?
Quite
sure?”

“You despicable little vixen. Your mother's been fretting over you all night. Doesn't that even bother you?”

Marie curled her lip up. “What tragedy could possibly happen to me in this paradise you've brought us to?”

For a moment she thought he was going to strike her again.

“There have been two murders in the port this week,” he said.

“Yeah? That doesn't surprise me.”

“Get into bed,” Gerald said through clenched teeth. “We'll discuss this in the morning.”

“Discuss it?” she asked archly. “You mean I get an equal say?”

“For fuck's sake, can it, Skibbow,” someone shouted. “We want to get some sleep here.”

Under the impotent stare of her father, Marie pulled her shoes off and sauntered over to her cot.

Quinn was still dozing in his sleeping-bag, struggling against the effects of the rough beer he had drunk in Donovan's, when
someone gripped the side of his cot and yanked it through ninety degrees. His arms and legs thrashed about in the sleeping-bag
as he tumbled onto the floor, but there was no way he could prevent the fall. His hip smacked into the concrete first, jarring
his pelvis badly, then his jaw landed. Quinn yelled out in surprise and pain.

“Get up, Ivet,” a voice shouted.

A man was standing over him, grinning down evilly. He was in his early forties, tall and well built, with a shock of black
hair and a full beard. The brown leather skin of his face and arms was scarred with a lunar relief of pocks and the tiny red
lines of broken capillaries. His clothes were all natural fabric, a thick red and black check cotton shirt with the arms torn
off, green denim trousers, lace-up boots that came up to his knees, and a belt which carried various powered gadgets and a
vicious-looking ninety-centimetre steel machete. A silver crucifix on a slim chain glinted at the base of his neck.

He laughed in a bass roar as Quinn groaned at the hot pain in his throbbing hip. Which was too much. Quinn grappled with the
seal catch at the top of the bag. He was going to make the bastard
pay
. The seal opened. His hands came out, and he kicked his legs, trying to shake off the constricting fabric. Somewhere around
the edges of his perception the other Ivets were shouting in alarm and jumping over the cots. A huge damp jaw closed around
his right hand,
completely
around, sharp teeth pinching the thin skin of his wrist, their tips grating between his tendons. Shock froze him for a horrific
second. It was a dog, a hound, a fucking hellhound. Even a sayce would have thought twice before taking it on. The thing must
have stood a metre high. It had short grizzled grey fur, a blunt hammerhead muzzle, jowls of black rubber, wet with gooey
saliva. Big liquid eyes were fixed on him. It was growling softly. Quinn could feel the vibration all the way along his arm.
He waited numbly, expecting the jaws to close, the mauling to begin. But the eyes just kept staring at him.

“My name is Powel Manani,” said the bearded man. “And our glorious leader, Governor Colin Rexrew, has appointed me as Group
Seven's settlement supervisor. That means, Ivets, I own you: body, and soul. And just to make my position absolutely clear
from the start: I don't like Ivets. I think this world would be a better place without putrid pieces of crap like you screwing
it up. But the LDC board has decided to lumber us with you, so I am going to make bloody sure every franc's worth of your
passage fee is squeezed out of you before your work-time is up. So when I say lick shit, you lick; you eat what I give you
to eat; and you wear what I give you to wear. And because you are lazy bastards by nature, there is going to be no such thing
as a day off for the next ten years.”

He squatted down beside Quinn and beamed broadly. “What's your name, dickhead?”

“Quinn Dexter… sir.”

Powel's eyebrows lifted in appreciation. “Well done. You're a smart one, Quinn. You learn quick.”

“Thank you, sir.” The dog's tongue was pressing against his fingers, sliding up and down his knuckles. It felt utterly disgusting.
He had never heard of an animal being trained so perfectly before.

“Smartarses are troublemakers, Quinn. Are you going to be a troublemaker for me?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you going to get up in the mornings in future, Quinn?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine. We understand each other, then.” Powel stood up. The dog released Quinn's hand, and backed off a pace.

Quinn held his hand up: it glistened from all the saliva;there were red marks like a tattooed bracelet around his wrist, and
two drops of blood welled up.

Powel patted the dog's head fondly. “This is my friend, Vorix. He and I are affinity bonded, which means I can quite literally
smell out any scams you dickheads cook up. So don't even try to pull any fast ones, because I know them all. If I find you
doing anything I don't like, it will be Vorix who deals with you. And it won't be your hand he bites off next time, he'll
be dining on your balls. Do I make myself clear?”

The Ivets mumbled their answer, heads bowed, avoiding Powel's eye.

“I'm glad none of us are suffering any illusions about the other. Now then, your instructions for the day. I will not repeat
them. Group Seven is going upriver on three ships: the
Swithland
, the
Nassier
, and the
Hycel
. They are currently docked in harbour three, and they're sailing in four hours. So that is the time you have to get the colonists'
gear loaded. Any pods that aren't loaded, I will have you carry on your backs the whole way to the landing site upriver. Do
not expect me to act as your permanent nursemaid, get yourselves organized and get on with it. You will be travelling with
me and Vorix on the
Swithland
. Now move!”

Vorix barked, jowls peeled back from his teeth. Powel watched Quinn skitter backwards like a crab, then pick himself up and
chase off after the other Ivets. He knew Quinn was going to be trouble, after helping to start five settlements he could read
the Ivets' thoughts like a personality debrief. The youth was highly resentful, and smart with it. He was more than a waster
kid, probably got tied in with some underground organization before he was transported. Powel toyed with the idea of simply
leaving him behind when the
Swithland
sailed, let the Durringham sheriffs deal with him. But the Land Allocation Office would know what he'd done, and it would
be entered in his file, which had too many incidents already. “Bugger,” he muttered under his breath. The Ivets were all outside
the dormitory, heading along the path to the warehouse. And it looked like they were gathering round Quinn, waiting for him
to start directing them. Oh well, if it came to it, Quinn would just have to have an accident in the jungle.